Adjustable long bolts have been in use for many years. During the last twenty-five years or so a so-called T-shaped connecting bolt has been used. This bolt has an enlarged T-shaped head at one end and opposite end of the bolt is pointed. Along the shank of the bolt between the ends are a pair of holes and an elongated slot with the slot being positioned in closest adjacency to the pointed end. This type of prior art bolt has a number of disadvantages as compared to the improved adjustable long bolt herein disclosed. The prior art bolt T-head acts as a T-square and prevents the bolt shank for assuming a compromise angle relative to the angle between adjoining siderails. This condition either shortens the usable grip length of the bolt or an all steel filler must add its dimension to one adjoining panel thereby increasing the mid-ordinate dimension. Particularly in 2" filler installations, the bolt is forced to T-square because the normal minimal wedge bolts grip tolerance available requires excessive securement of the wedge-bolt. Still further, the new adjustable long bolt herein disclosed has a number of important advantages that are unattainable by the old prior art bolts of the type under consideration.
According to important features of my invention, I have provided a new and improved adjustable long bolt for connecting modular concrete form panels. The bolt is generally flat along its length and has a pair of elongated slots disposed in adjacency to opposite ends of the bolt and at least one circular hole is disposed between the slots. The circular hole or holes preferably has its mid-point or mid-points disposed along a longitudinal line in longitudinal alignment with longitudinal axes of said elongated slots. The longitudinal spacing between the slots with respect to the at least one circular hole is varied to enable the bolt to be installed in a larger number of adjustable positions by turning the bolt on its end through an arc of rotation of 180.degree..
In the prefererred embodiment of my invention, the adustable long bolt is provided with five holes and the holes are equidistantly spaced apart along the length of the bolt and are all located between the elongated slots.
According to other features of my invention, the enlarged head has been eliminated and my adjustable long bolt is headless or squared-off at one end and pointed at an opposite end.
With a new and improved adjustable long bolt of the type generally described so far, a number of advantages are attainable. To this end, the adjustable long bolt can be infinitely adjusted 0-21/4" plus a 21/2" to 31/2" adjustment range. Further, my new bolt has a means to fine tune adjust English dimensions to metric (0 to 60 mm).
According to other features of my invention a modular concrete form structure has been provided which includes a pair of concrete form panels to be joined together. Each pair has confronting slotted panel margins. According to my invention, an improved adjustable long bolt is provided for coaction with the slotted panel margins and the bolt is extensible into the slots on the panels for connecting the pair of the modular concrete panels together. The bolt is generally flat along its length. A pair of elongated slots are disposed in adjacency to opposite ends of the bolt and at least one circular hole is disposed between the slots having its mid-point disposed along a longitudinal line in longitudinal alignment with longitudinal axes of the elongated slots. The longitudinal spacing between said slots with respect to the at least one circular hole is varied to enable the bolt to be installed in a larger number of adjustable positions by turning the bolt on its end through an arc of rotation of 180.degree.. A connecting wire tie is provided for insertion into one of the slots adjacent one end of the bolt. A wedge bolt is provided for insertion through an elongated slot at an opposite end of the bolt thus serving to tie the panels in snug wedged assembly together.
In view of the foregoing, it will be appreciated that it is an important object of this invention to provide a new and improved adjustable long bolt that can be used in combination with modular concrete form panels to provide an increased variety of adjustments to enable the bolt to be used in greater numbers of arrangements as compared with any previously known bolt of this type.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a new and improved adjustable long bolt that can adjust concrete form panels with or without fillers to English dimensions and to metric dimensions.
A more specific object of this invention is to provide a new and improved adjustable long bolt that provides infinite adjustment 0 to 21/2" plus a 21/2" to 31/2" adjustment range.
Still another and further object of the present invention is to provide an adjustable long bolt that can adjust for optimum grip of standard fin-less filler on radius walls, particularly the small diameters.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved adjustable long bolt that can adjust to optimum grip of any job-built wood filler. A still further object of the invention is to provide a new and improved headless adjustable long bolt that can be stripped from assembly with modular concrete form panels in tight quarters in either direction.